Technology Juggernauts Harnessing Power of Olympics2016

Olympics, the mix of everything in everything, has come to life, as the cauldron has been lit and the show has started. But this time, there’s something really amazing happening that is beyond expectation. This Olympics is the most technologically oriented event where the big technology giants such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook are taking advantage of the event by modernizing many aspects of Olympics.

Rio 2016 and Technologies (courtesy: www.rio2016-live.com)

Here’s what’s happening:

Live Streaming Application: The NBC Sports app will be livestreaming all the events. The application is available for download on Android, iOS, Roku, Amazon, Windows 10 tablets, Xbox, Windows Phone, PC and Mac to access news, highlights and programming.

Microsoft Azure: Microsoft has prepared a big storage space, called cloud, for storing and live-streaming all the events of Rio to the whole world. Each user will be allowed to access 4,500 hours of online content. Due to a time difference of only 1 hour between Eastern US and Rio, a large amount of viewers are expected this time.

The need for high definition: To deliver the best services and gather audience who will be watching Rio on big TV’s, NBC want to assure high definition output for their TV Programs. Microsoft Azure has also increased their TV output to 1080 pixels.

Livestream Ads: Azure will be partnering with Adobe to build livestream ads.

Local tech: Microsoft announced that they will also be developing technology to meet the needs of local people and local places where the games will be played.

The Google Magic: Google has announced a variety of additions to their interface for the upcoming Rio Olympics. Google will be adding a detailed event schedule, the country wise medal count and athlete information in its Search function. These additions will also enable everyone to view the TV Schedule in more than 31 nations and watch highlights of all the events in more than 60 countries around the world. Users of google on android and iOS will be getting automatic updates of all events in Rio.

The google Maps Experience: Google Maps has already scanned the streets of Rio and Olympic venue for a 360 degree panoramas using Street view. Google has also partnered with 8-9 of top cultural organisations of Rio to create an interactive online collection of Rio’s famous art exhibits and landmarks.

Samsung is in line: Samsung came up with a world class Galaxy S7 edge Olympic Games Limited Edition smartphone and Samsung will be delivering 12,500 to all Olympians.

Virtual Reality Dance: VR is also here to rock Rio! NBC will offer virtual reality coverage of the Olympic Games, exclusively for Samsung Galaxy smartphone users having the Samsung Galaxy VR via the NBC app. 85 hours of VR programing will be available including all ceremonies and games.

Tips for many tech leaders: Dahlia El Gazzar, the founder of event tech consulting firm DAHLIA+ offered amazing tips for tech leaders to grab hold of their funnel in such events and how to make full use of them. The tips were on improvement of Data analytics, Curation of user-generated content and filtration and creation of local meetup or events applications. El Gazzar said: “For smaller tech companies—be niche, be consistent, do what you do best, target hard, promote what you are doing,”

Here are the 3 best learning outcomes of this year’s Olympics:

This year’s Olympics will be the most technologically oriented event, setting examples for all tech leaders to follow.

This year, 85% of viewers will be on a second screen such as TV, app, or VR to watch the events.

Partnerships, Expansion and Rebranding is the future for tech companies to capitalize on major events.

Let us see which country and which company make the most of this highly popular game show!